This is a play firmly rooted in real life. Overtly about the playwright’s parents and grandparents, even the names are unchanged. As one long dead character says just before the end “Then am I here in someone’s dream? Someone doesn’t want me to have gone” to which the rueful reply is “My son is writing us”.
The play, which is not strong on plot, consists of a series of scenes set across 30 years in which we see an elderly couple whose son is a professional pianist along with his wife and, later, her second husband. There is tension – of course – and a great deal of wistfulness along with anger, anxiety and frustration. It’s beautifully observed but nothing much happens beyond two people getting very old and a marriage breaking up – pretty ordinary family life, in fact.
There is some very good acting, though. Flynn endows Peggy with common sense and sensitivity. As her practical, straight-talking husband, Bert, Robin Soans makes it absolutely clear that he adores his wife while boring the pants off his family with World War Two anecdotes. David Ricardo-Pearce is totally convincing as David – trying to be reasonable, often in the face of difficulty and he does awkwardness as well as I’ve ever seen it done on stage. As Fiona, initially David’s wife, Naomi Petersen does with aplomb the transition from young, happily married woman with a singing career to middle-aged second wife running choirs in the Welsh borders. And George Taylor finds stillness and warmth in the ever-decent Rob who takes on David’s two children and has a daughter of his own with Fiona.
It’s an enjoyable two hours which gets under your skin even if it makes you feel voyeuristic as you watch actors as “real” people working through the private issues of everyday life.
Review by Susan Elkin